In Absentia
by piratesmiley
Summary: The moments before the screen went black, from Olivia's perspective. P/O. Spoilers for Over There Part Two.


_A/N: My first, gut reactions to Part Two. That was craziness. _

_LOTS of spoilers, so beware._

_Disclaimer: I don't own Fringe._

* * *

She woke up in the white room. White and patterned. Like she was crazy. A mental patient. And to them, she was. She was the enemy, she was foreign, but really she was just something else.

Her life was stagnant, unchanging, lifeless. She was lifeless. She wasn't a person, but a caged animal, an alien, a foreign substance to be watched from afar but never treated with any semblance of human compassion.

This was the best punishment. From the law's perspective, from common sense's perspective, an eternity of thinking about her actions, being tortured by guilt, swallowed by the fear of ignorance, and jarred into realizing and analyzing every mistake, every flaw, every pipe dream and Hail Mary, could kill her just as easily as a little lethal injection.

They all could be dead.

Bell, enigmatic and kind, supportive and quick. She thought of him so fondly now, in retrospect. Now that she felt her life was ending.

Walter, her partner in this crime. She prayed – really, truly, but who knows, God could hate her here too – that he was safe. Endlessly inventive, a problem-solver. Never a burden, never.

And Peter. Her one true love.

All the lies culminated into her love for him. Unending, unchanging, two days in hell plus however long she'd been in here added to the time it took for her to realize. To analyze, to justify, to quantify, to live.

Her whole being wanted him. Her whole being knew that only he could save her and only he would be fool enough to get caught in her crossfire.

So deeply sorry. Remorse hit her like the constant waves of her angry ocean. Beating after beating, she beat herself, they beat her, and she beat herself some more. Because she knew, without a single doubt, that she deserved everything coming to her.

That being said, she _knew_ she could not take much more of this. Solitary confinement. Nothing but pale. And she had the dirty strands of her failed spy act dripping from her head to remind her everyday of why she was there. Nothing was changing. She was losing time, her sweet grip slick with hysteria. The pain, the fear, the agony, the terror, the horror, the guilt, the doubt, the discontent, the malcontent, the fight, the kiss, the confession, the gun, the bomb, the dye, the piano, the pizza, the scotch, the pain, the fear, the agony…

She was almost ready to end it all. Not that she'd be able to do it; anything that could hurt herself could hurt them too, and she would lean towards homicide first, in a heartbeat. Even still, there was that chance that she was flat enough, low enough, and oh, so desperate…

Even still, there was the chance that people were looking for her…

Sometimes people fail.

Lose. Win. Guilt. Sinking ships. Cash money. Sex. Candy.

She spends time pretending that they are alive, coming up with situations in which they get home safely. But she can't imagine how they could. Bell was going to train her, help her get them home, and she was so ready, because Peter was coming with, but now…

Unless _that woman_ helped them. There was no way that she would, though. She was a cold-hearted bitch. That flicker of understanding she had thought she'd witnessed was a bold-faced lie. She had shot Bell, she had taken Olivia out, and so she either killed them all, or took them and hid them away in little cells, no longer existing, just like she…

Unless, of course.

Oh, the possibilities. Life had thrown normal parameters for evil doppelgangers out the window.

If she touched a hair on any one of their heads…

If she touched Peter.

Jealousy, hot and red. They looked so similar now; he could be mistaken. Then again, Peter knew Olivia better than anyone. He paid far too much attention. _You do that thing with your mouth when you're upset._ Good _God_, her mouth, his mouth.

Too much, too much. Not enough.

Never enough.

The light flipped on. She let out a terrified shriek, like a chainsaw starting up, but far more desperate, and far more sorry.

And he just stood there, taking in the sight of her weakness, her mental degradation. He was waiting to see how fast she would break.

It was exponential.

Satisfied, he left. Smug and free. The worst combination.

She was reminded, instantly, of being six years old, being shut in the broom closet of their apartment in Jacksonville, step-father yelling, "you can come out when you've learned your lesson, you little bitch."

The man walked away calmly as she screamed.

She didn't stop until she had nothing left.


End file.
